Developer hopes new Flying Boat Inn housing plan will take off

A DEVELOPER has returned with fresh plans to build homes on the site of a pub which burned down nearly 20 years ago.

An outline application has been submitted to the national park authority for seven houses on part of the land that used to host the Flying Boat Inn, on Calshot Road. It was demolished after a fire in 2001.

As reported in the A&T, similar plans were refused by the NPA a year ago. A new, smaller-scale version has now been handed in by the same applicant, Habib Ghahramanizadi, of Dibden Purlieu-based FB Estates.

The proposal for the 0.8-hectare site includes 14 parking spaces. Documents said the development was designed to echo the characteristics of a farmyard, with materials and architecture to match a rural style.

It said: “Overall the proposals present a smaller footprint and less dominant development than the Flying Boat Inn did before its demolition, and a reduction in scale compared to the previous proposals.”

It added that in future the remainder of the site could provide a new public house and community shop.

The new proposals have been backed by Fawley Parish Council. A villager also wrote to the NPA saying that although she supported housing in principle, she preferred bungalows as houses might “dominate” the area.

The pub was originally the officers’ mess for the RAF squadron based at Calshot. It later became the Flying Boat Inn which closed in the late 1990s.

In 2011 another developer, Stoneclose Ltd, failed to build a 24-bed hotel and restaurant complex on the site after losing an appeal against the NPA to renew permission for the scheme which had originally been granted in 2005.

A decision by the NPA on the plan for seven homes is scheduled after the deadline for public comments on 29th January. Even if approved, an application with the final details would have to be agreed before any work could begin.